Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart is an amazing 2008 book. We do not appreciate what homemakers do for us, so any biblical wisdom is just great. Every homemaker needs some encouragement and advice. Combine that with inspiration and ample biblical wisdom, and you get Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart. Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart is framed after the verses in Proverbs 31.Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart touches on all areas of homemaking, including hard work, feeding the family, time management, money management, and living through difficult times. Often, the homemaker is a woman. Do you appreciate your mother?
Summary of Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart
Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart is divided into different sections that relate to the sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Appendix covers the practical matters with worksheets to help mothers plan housework, meals, budgets, and even home-buying and decorating. You do not necessarily have to read this book in order from start to finish. Which might be good, it is 244 pages long. Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart is the kind of book you can pick up at any point, making it very readable.
In the introduction of Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart, it says homemaking “centers on the tasks of making a house a home, a place of beauty and order, where the needs of our loved ones are met.” Mothers do this by examining the description of a godly woman in Proverbs 31.
Graced and Gifted is has six main sections:
She Works With Willing Hands
She Brings Her Food From Afar
She Rises While It Is Still Night
She Provides Tasks for Her Maidens
She Considers a Field and Buys It
She Girds Herself with Strength
In each section, two chapters of biblical reflections on homemaking are followed by a chapter relating that area to one of the sacraments. For example, providing food for families is connected with the Eucharist, and cleaning our homes is connected with confession. While some of the topics seem old-fashioned (like providing tasks for our maidens—unfortunately, I don’t have any servants to help out around the house!), Kimberly helps connect the ideas behind the Scripture to our modern-day lives.
Each section ends with reflection questions. Hahn also includes in Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart a bibliography. In Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart Hahn says we should find holiness in Homemaking.
Proverbs 31
Proverbs 31 is the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Verses 1 to 9 discuss the advice which King Lemuel’s mother gave to him, about how a just king should reign. The remaining verses detail the attributes of a good wife or an ideal woman (verses 10–31).
More about Kimberly Hahn
Kimberly Hahn is a Catholic speaker and author who for decades has shared her wisdom with other wives and mothers. She and Scott Hahn have been married for more than forty years and have six children and nineteen grandchildren. After homeschooling for twenty-six years, Kimberly now serves as Council-at-Large in Stubenville, Ohio and hosts the St. Paul Centre podcast Beloved and Blessed. She is also the author of Chosen and Cherished Biblical Wisdom for Your Marriage and Catholic Education: Homeward Bound – Useful Guide to Catholic Home Schooling.
Conclusion
Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart is a fantastic book. We do not appreciate what homemaker’s, who are often mothers, do for us. It is also the case we have a societale problem with this concept as well, generally society does not appreciate what homemakers do for us. Hopefully, Grace and Gifted: Biblical Wisdom for the Homemaker’s Heart will bring some attention to the matter.
